


Tomorrow Is Another Day

by Lilas (pegasus_01)



Series: Wham Bam Shang-a-Lang [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Family, Not A Fix-It, Post-Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-07 22:50:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11068722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pegasus_01/pseuds/Lilas
Summary: Gamora wakes up in the cargo hold of theQuadrantand it doesn't take her long to realize what happened and that Peter is not where he should be.





	Tomorrow Is Another Day

**Author's Note:**

> I clearly have _feelings_ about this movie.

Gamora snapped her elbow backward into whatever or whomever was holding her from behind before her eyes had even opened. She distantly recognized the hard, cold metal she hit, but a sense of blind panic kept her going. When her binds didn’t budge, she slammed her head back, grabbed one of the arms around her, and pulled even as she shifted her weight forward, bringing her captor vaulting over her shoulder. She let out a small huff of surprise when, instead of flying in the air and crash landing before her, the person behind her only tightened their arms and, using her own momentum against her, flipped her with them. Before she could do anything, Gamora had been slammed face down into the metal grid, one cheek pressed against the decking. She grunted softly and braced her shoulders and legs for another try even as hands pulled her wrists behind her back and two knees pressed against her lower spine painfully.

“Stop it, sister,” Nebula’s metallic voice grunted above her.

Gamora froze, her muscles shifting from attack readiness to startled confusion. 

“Nebula?” She blinked several times as she brought her breathing back under control and finally took stock of the room around her. She was in the hold of the _Quadrant_. A couple of feet in front of her lay a weapon, and beyond that the closed doors of the cargo hold. Something about those doors tugged at her memory, made her chest clench painfully and her breathing erratic, but she was distracted by Nebula’s hands tightening around her wrists. “What happened?” 

Nebula was silent for a moment and Gamora tugged at her wrists ineffectually; she wasn’t really trying to get away just yet. She felt sluggish and stupid, and she knew she was missing something. She could feel it in the way Nebula held her, in the way her circuitry seemed slower than normal, in the way her mind struggled to make sense of her situation. Her brain was foggy around the edges and her limbs twitched minutely, and it occurred to her that she only felt this after she was electrocuted. But that didn’t make any sense. Why—who would have electrocuted her here, when she was amongst her friends? 

“Nebula,” she repeated, irritation coloring her voice.

Behind her, Nebula sighed and Gamora tensed even more. “What do you remember?”

Gamora frowned and tried to think back. She remembered the Sovereigns and Rocket stealing the batteries, the chase through the asteroids to get to the jump point, crashing on Berhet, Ego—

_Ego_

“Peter!” she gasped and bucked under Nebula in her need to _getupstandupgethimoutofthere_ —

“Stop it, Gamora,” Nebula grunted as her hold on Gamora tightened and the bones beneath her hands creaked.

“Get off me, Nebula! _Rocket_ ,” she snarled as she whipped her head to the other side, trying and failing to locate her traitorous teammate. “You coward! You… _You goddamn trash panda!_ ” she screamed, still bucking under Nebula’s weight and unconcerned at the pain radiating from her wrists and ribs as her cybernetic skeleton groaned from the pressure.

“Yeah, okay, I pro’ly deserved that,” Rocket’s voice drifted from behind her and she stilled momentarily before growling. She heard his claws echoing in the hold as he appeared in her line of sight, and had it not been for Nebula’s ever tightening hold on her, he would have already been severely maimed. “In my defense though—”

She growled again and bared her teeth for good measure. “There is no defense for what you have done, you dishonorable, despicable—”

“Quill wouldn’t have wanted you to die with him,” he finished and leveled piercing black eyes at her.

She stilled at his words, a strong twinge-like pain flaring in her chest that had nothing to do with her creaking ribs. The last time she had felt this way was as she had watched her world burn around her while she stood in the shadow of Thanos. She wondered if this was what Peter had meant when he’d spoken about heartbreak. She blinked and felt her chest constricting, her throat closing, and wondered if she would be crying if she had had any tear ducts left. 

“I am Groot.” The small declaration was accompanied by an equally small hand coming to rest on her cheek, and she focused her eyes on Groot, who stood by her cheekbones, no taller than her head.

“He says he misses him too,” Rocket whispered, his eyes glued to the tiny Flora Colossus.

“You shouldn’t have stopped me,” Gamora said, surprised at how hoarse her voice sounded. “I could have gotten him.”

Rocket’s ears drooped down and he sighed as he shook his head slowly. “There was less than a minute left before the planet blew. You wouldn’t even have made it down to the core.”

Gamora felt Nebula shift above her and suddenly her weight was off her back. She slowly pushed herself to a sitting position and _looked_ at Rocket. His whiskers were burnt at the tips, his fur was matted, and his whole posture screamed of grief and guilt. She turned her gaze to look at the closed cargo doors and heard the grating beneath her hands screech as she squeezed it.

_Peter_

“Uh, guys?!” Kraglin shouted from the cockpit, a tremulous note to his voice that had Gamora standing before she’d even realized what she’d done. “I’m… There’s something… You should get up here!”

Gamora and Rocket looked at each other for half a second before dashing up to the bridge, an absolutely stupid and daring feeling of hope expanding in her chest. 

“What? What is it?” Rocket demanded as he shoved Kraglin aside and scurried onto the pilot seat, pulling displays before the Ravager could say anything else. “Wait, is that… Is that a spacesuit signature?” Rocket sputtered.

“That’s what it seems like,” Kragling confirmed.

“That goddamn, fucking, ugly blue asshole! Groot, don’t repeat that!” Rocket exclaimed joyfully even as he grabbed the controls and maneuvered the ship in a graceful arc toward the large expanse of nothingness that used to be Ego’s planet. 

“Rocket?” Drax asked from behind her, and Gamora nearly jumped a foot. She had been so focused on Rocket and what this could mean that she hadn’t even heard the warrior coming onto the bridge.

“I gave Yondu an aero-rig and a spacesuit before I left him down on Ego’s planet,” he explained. 

Gamora sucked in a breath and turned her gaze to the stars beyond the windshield, her heart feeling like it would beat right out of her chest. As they neared the coordinates, she stepped up to the viewport and narrowed her eyes, her gaze sweeping past the constellations of stars. A light slightly different than the rest caught her attention, and Gamora thought that she could just make out the blue outline of one of Rocket’s emergency spacesuits. 

“There,” she breathed, her hand coming up to rest on the glass in front of her. “Rocket.”

“I hea’d ya, I hea’d ya!” he grumbled, paws flying across the controls as he slowed the ship. “I’ll bring ‘em in with the tractor.”

Gamora was already halfway across the bridge when the yellow-orange light cast its colors across the ceiling of the ship. She tried to slow her heartbeat by regulating her breathing, but knew that she was less than successful when she saw Nebula staring at her from the corner of her eyes, a sneer firmly etched on her sister’s lips. She paid her no mind and instead made her way as fast as she could to the decompression chamber, a mix of desperate hope and agonizing fear building in her chest.

There had been two people out in the darkness of space.

Two people, and one suit.

She watched anxiously as the light pulled the bodies into the chamber and started the decompression cycle. Behind her she could hear pounding footsteps and ragged breathing, and couldn’t help the fierce protectiveness she felt for her friends. This rag-tag band of misfits, of _losers_ , who had somehow, impossibly, become her family. 

As soon as the last hiss of air faded and the light turned green, Gamora pulled the door open just far enough to squeeze herself inside and fall behind the man kneeling on the floor, covered in the shimmering and protective blue light of Rocket’s spacesuit.

“Peter,” she breathed, barely daring to believe her eyes, “Peter.” Her hand was blocked from touching him by the suit and she frowned. “Rocket?” 

“Move, move,” he ordered, barreling into the room and pushing her out of the way. She moved instead to sit by Peter’s side, her hands resting on her knees. “What did that blue idiot do to my spacesuit?”

“He knew I’d try to take it off,” Peter whispered, and Gamora startled at his voice. It was hoarse and thready, and she wondered if she would have been able to hear it at all had Thanos not deemed it necessary to fit her with enhanced hearing. Bending over to see his face, Gamora could just make out the tear tracks on his cheeks and her heart broke for him. In front of her, the ice slowly melting from his skin and clothes, lay Yondu, his milky-white eyes wide open and devoid of any traces of life.

“Friend Quill,” Drax murmured as he knelt behind Peter and placed a hand on the covered shoulder. “I am sorry for your loss.”

Peter slowly turned to look at him just as Rocket let out a small, triumphant “Hah!” and the spacesuit’s protective covering vanished. The reaction was instantaneous; without it, Peter slumped and crumbled into Drax like a marionette whose strings had been suddenly cut off. Without missing a beat, Drax wrapped his arms around him and guided his face into the crook of his neck.

“I need that hug now,” Peter mumbled into Drax’s shoulder, which only made the man tighten his hold.

“I am Groot.” Gamora looked down to see Groot standing by her knees, looking sadly between Yondu and Peter. She watched with a sad smile as Groot bloomed a bright, yellow flower and scampered up her legs and onto Peter’s lap, offering it to Peter, who took it with shaking hands. “I am Groot.”

“Yondu was a Guardian,” Rocket explained as Peter turned his head just enough to look back at him questioningly. “He was family.”

Peter smiled tenuously before burying his face back into the juncture between Drax’s neck and shoulder. Gamora clenched her hands briefly, hesitation and uncertainty flaring within her for just one second, before she finally placed a gentle hand on his back. A feeling of strong and powerful relief thrummed beneath her skin at being able to touch him, to feel his body heat even through his clothes. She let her hand draw small circles across his back, a gesture she vaguely remembered her mother doing for her whenever she was upset as a child.

“Kraglin,” she stated, looking back toward the door to find the remaining Ravager staring at the lifeless corpse of his captain. “Will you show us how to bury him in the ways of the Ravagers?”

Kraglin started at her words and snapped his spine straight, his left fist pumping the symbol of the Ravager flame etched on his chest. “Yes,” he affirmed, his voice a mix of sorrow and pride. He turned to leave but paused. “Pete…”

“I know, Kraglin,” Peter croaked from within Drax’s skin, and Gamora thought she could hear a sniffle. “I’ll get him ready.”

Kraglin gave a single curt nod, and looked over at Rocket, his eyebrows raised demandingly. Gamora could practically _hear_ the silent conversation going on between the two of them, and was surprised at how hesitant Rocket seemed to be to leave Peter’s side. She placed her free hand on Rocket’s shoulder and squeezed softly, gesturing with her head that he should follow Kraglin to help him prepare for the funeral; that she, Drax, and Groot would look after Peter while he took care of that. Reluctantly, Rocket nodded and shot a meaningful glance between her and Peter before following Kraglin out of the chamber.

“Peter,” she murmured, giving in to the urge and resting her forehead against his back.

“All those years he spent terrorizing me, yelling at me, telling me he’d let the crew eat me,” Peter whispered. “But he taught me how to shoot, how to fight. He gave me the Milano. He…” With what seemed like immense effort, Peter pulled away from Drax, who loosened his hold but never let go. “He hid me. He protected me. He made me who I am. He gave me you.” 

Gamora’s breath caught in her throat and she was glad her face was still pressed against his back so no one could see her. 

_This unspoken thing_

“He gave me all of you. My family.” Peter looked down and reached out, placing his hand over Yondu’s eyes and slowly closing his eyelids over the vacant, milky-white orbs. “He was my dad in all but blood.”

“And we shall bury him like family,” Drax murmured, one of his hands coming to rest on Peter’s shoulder and squeezing tightly. “Come, Quill. Show us the ways of the Ravagers.”

Peter nodded and let Drax pull him to his feet. Gamora’s forehead felt cold now without the heat of his body and she instinctively followed him up, standing by his side as he looked down at the man who had raised him to become the person he was now; to become a Guardian, their leader, their Star-Lord. 

She couldn’t help the small prayer of thanks to Yondu for ultimately being the father that Peter deserved; the one willing to sacrifice himself to save his son, instead of the one willing to sacrifice his son to save himself.


End file.
